


Queen C's Scheme

by rhodrymavelyne



Series: A Hopeless Situation [13]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 13:44:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: The Scoobies have figured out that the dead are talking to them. What can they do about it? More importantly to Cordelia, what can they do about their damaged reputations? Faith has an idea, but it's up to Queen C to put it into action.





	Queen C's Scheme

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part 13 of my ongoing story, A Hopeless Situation, a idea Thrawn suggested to me. It takes place during the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, before Faith becomes an enemy. Alas, I've realized I've fudged some of the details of the timeline, I'm sorry. :( 
> 
> Buffy the Vampire Slayer doesn't belong to me. There are times, though, when this world and these characters take over my imagination...and I let them take me away. :)

Willow was in such a rush to get to the library, she almost crashed into a leather-clad girl upon the way.

“Whoa, slow down, Red.” Faith stopped and grabbed the arm of the girl next to her. “You’re flesh and blood. Good.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Willow demanded before her terrified brain started working again. “Oh. Oh, no. You, too?”

“Got a feeling we’re going to the same place.” Faith released her and strode in the direction of the library.

“Faith.” Willow trotted to keep up with the Slayer. “Are you seeing dead people, too? Or someone pretending to be a dead person?”

“Let’s wait until we get to our babysitting bookworms before we rehash ghost stories.” Faith pushed open the door, flashing her usual “I’m too tough to let anything get to me” smirk at the other girl. “After you.”

Willow let the Slayer open the door for her, noting the shadows under Faith’s eyes. These were more than just mascara, even if the other Slayer did apply enough eye shadow that she sometimes looked like an abused panda.

“All right, Giles…or maybe Wes.” Faith glanced around the stacks for any signs of the Watcher or the ex-Watcher. “Here’s hoping one of you is a man with a plan-“

A high-pitched scream, even more shrill than Willow’s own made both girls freeze. She gazed at the upper floor of the library. 

Wesley Wyndam-Price stumbled out with his hands up in the air, flailing in a feeble gesture of warding. 

“Not Wes. Surprise, surprise.” Faith rolled her eyes. “You can put your arms down, Boy Watcher. It’s just us.”

“Ah, uh, Faith, of course.” Wesley smoothed the front of his suit, adjusted his glasses, tried to look less terrified. “We, I mean, I was trying to ascertain the nature of certain problems around the high school-“

“-such as the dead coming back to haunt the living.” Giles walked out of his office downstairs. He, too, had dark circles under his eyes.

“You, too?” Faith glanced from Watcher to Watcher.

Wesley nodded, bit his lower lip, watching Giles polish his glasses.

For the first time, Willow pitied Giles’s replacement. Sweat beaded his brow, in spite of his attempts to compose himself. Giles looked haggard, but more in control. Wesley, on the other hand, looked like he’d been dragged into a hell dimension and wasn’t sure if he was still there. 

“What’s up?” Faith asked, crossing her arms.

Neither Giles nor Wesley had time to answer. The doors of the library flew open. Buffy and Cordelia marched inside with identical looks of fearful outrage on their faces.

“Giles, something is going on!” Buffy turned wide blue eyes upon her former Watcher, only to turn bright red at the sight of Faith. 

“Giles, you have to do something!” Cordelia reached up to start to tugging her hair, deliberately mussing it. 

All right, things were serious.

“Someone or something is convincing everyone at school that Buffy and I are a pair of lesbos!” Cordelia raised her eyes to the heavens as if asking them to deliver her from such a fate. 

“A hunky, shirtless something,” Xander muttered. He’d followed the two girls inside, looking every bit as freaked out as they were. “A something that shouldn’t be walking around the school in daytime.”

“You saw Jesse, too?” Willow moved a little closer to her oldest friend, reaching out a hand to touch him. Xander had been hit hard by the loss of Jesse. If whatever this thing was tried to mess with those unresolved feelings, if it was tormenting Xander over them, Willow was even more willing than usual to kill it. 

“Jesse? No!” Xander turned wide, brown eyes, similar to a skittish deer spotted by a predator in her direction. “I saw Spike!”

“Spike?” Buffy turned to Xander, her attention caught by this. “I saw Kendra. You’re saying we saw two completely different dead people?”

“Sounds like everyone’s seeing dead people.” Faith glanced at Wesley and Giles. “Right?”

“Yes, that appears to be the case.” Once more Giles fussed with his clothes. “Something has been haunting the school and everyone in it, but it’s not a ghost. Whatever it is has the ability to be in the same place at once, taking the form of more than one of the deceased.” 

“Excuse me?” Cordelia flung her hands in the air. “Could we spare a moment to pay attention to what’s happening to me? Granted, Buffy has slightly better than fashion sense than Xander-“

“Hey!” Buffy turned with a scowl towards Cordelia. 

“Hey!” Xander flashed an identical scowl at the girl he’d once thought he could have a relationship with. Whatever made him think something so crazy? 

“-still, this is just wrong! I’m going to be stalked by leather girls from now on, wanting to know I’ll take them home and spank them!” Cordelia glanced over at Faith, noticing her leather jacket for the first time. “No offense.”

“That so? Why don’t you do something about this, Queen C?” Faith looked Corelia straight in the eye. “The dead stalking us are a Watcher thing, but the rumour mill is more your department, right?”

“What do you mean?” Cordelia glowered at the other Slayer. “As if you could ever comprehend my humiliation? I’ve got Harmony, Harmony of all people, looking down her nose at me!”

“Yeah, Faith, what’s the what?” Buffy crossed her arms and looked right back at her opposite. “Why are you acting like Cordy is so important all of a sudden?” She shot the brunette a vicious look. “Other than as the albatross hanging around my neck.”

“Buffy, you actually did the reading in English!” Willow, always easy to distract by the academic, beamed at her friend. 

“I did, didn’t I?” Buffy grinned a little, also distracted by her friend’s praise. 

“Oh, don’t try to be literary, Buffy,” Cordelia sneered. “It doesn’t suit a dumb blonde, much less one I’d stoop to switch teams for. Not that I would.”

Buffy and Cordelia both crossed their arms and glared at each other. 

“Sheesh, chill, princesses.” Faith glanced from Buffy to Cordelia, lips twitching. “B, you’re not seeing the big picture here. You’re the one who likes thinking, so think about it.”

“All right, Faith.” Buffy dropped her arms. “What am I not thinking about?”

“Strange stuff is happening at Sunnydale High. From what you’ve all said, that’s the usual. Dead people are sassing the living, sure, but they’re all talk.” Faith took a step closer to Buffy. “What’s not happening?” 

Buffy gazed at the other Slayer for a long moment. Willow felt her breath catch in her throat for a moment. 

She could almost feel it, breathe it in, taste the connection between the two of them. Here were two girls, born to hunt monsters. They’d never have to worry about the other being too weak or fragile to take on a hunt or anywhere else. What’s more, they shared the same power. Who could understand Buffy better than Faith?

That breath she was holding started to turn into a lump. Willow let it out, but the lump wasn’t going away. 

“Something is trying to push us apart.” Buffy fixed her direct blue gaze upon Faith’s dark one. “Something wants us ashamed of what we share.”

“What we share? Maybe.” Faith shook her head, not looking away. “What else is happening, B? Or rather, not happening?”

“Dead people are showing up, harassing us, but they’re not actually doing anything else.” Buffy widened her eyes. “There are no bodies. No one has been killed.”

“That would indicate that whatever this is cannot harm people. At least not directly.” Giles lay a hand upon a pile of books near him. “It requires us to harm each other, by drawing on the evil within us all.”

“Which is why it’s only whispering in everyone’s ear.” Buffy glanced at her Watcher. “It’s trying to get us to do the damage. To ourselves or someoneone else.”

“All it’s got are words.” Faith smiled and shook her head. “B, that’s all the damage this big bad can do.”

“All the damage?” Cordelia marched over to glower at the two Slayers off in their little world away from all the ordinary mortals. Which was something Cordy would never admit she was. “Don’t underestimate the power of a ruined reputation. It can destroy you. Look at Marie Antoinette.”

“That’s why it’s up to you, Queen C, to save the day.” Faith raised an eyebrow at Cordelia.

“Me?” Cordelia stopped, looking surprised and flattered at the same time. No wonder. Cordy got to save the day even less than Willow did. “What can I do?”

“Yeah, what do you expect Cordy to do?” Buffy looked the brunette up and down. “Fight the dead with her keen fashion sense? She’s even weaker than I was.”  
“Excuse me?” Cordelia looked down her nose at the smaller Slayer. “What do you know about fashion?”

“Yeah, well, that might be a start.” A tiny smile played upon Faith’s lips while she looked at Cordelia Chase. “Fighting this whatever with her keen fashion sense might do it. Especially considering the fashion plates it’s using to talk crap about you.”

“Huh?” Cordelia and Buffy both stared at Faith with open mouths, perfectly in synch. It would have been funny, if Willow wasn’t already feeling left out.

“If I can be replaced, so can you, Will.” Willow could almost hear Jesse whisper into her ear. 

“Um, everyone, I think it may be here, listening to our plan.” Willow lifted a hand to catch everyone’s attention. 

“In other words, we don’t have the element of surprise.” Buffy glanced around, searching for any sign of dead people. None appeared. 

“Do we need it?” Faith kept her dark eyes fixed upon Cordelia. “Ruling the school is your thing, isn’t it, Queen C?” There was an almost sultry challenge to Faith’s words along with the gleam in her eye. “You ruled it before this Harmony chick.”

“Are you kidding?” Cordelia drew herself up with pride. “Any ideas Harmony ever had about style, fashion, or ruling anything she got from me.”

“So if she’s the problem, you know how to get her on the run.” Faith allow her smirk to spread across her face. “She thinks you and B are a pair of lesbos? Be classy lesbos.”

“What?” Buffy opened her mouth and shut it. 

“Yeah, if this chick gets her kicks from being stylish, beat her to it.” Faith cocked her head to one side. “Make her wish she was half the lesbo you were, since you beat her to the pride parade which is now the hottest spot. Only she didn’t know it.” 

“Faith, I don’t know about this plan-“ Buffy began with a frown, only Cordelia interrupted her. 

“Are you kidding?” The former high school queen smiled with savage anticipation of utterly humilating the upstart who dared to steal her throne. “It’s a brilliant plan. I should have thought of it myself.”

“You should have?” This time, it was Buffy and Willow who spoke at the same time, only to glance at each other. Buffy shot her friend a confused, almost shy smile.

Well, at least Willow was still on Buffy’s wave length, even if she did have something going on with Faith and now appeared about to get couply with Cordelia. Not that Willow thought she was a great improvement over Faith. Buffy really could do better than that. 

Not that this was the hot issue right now. Willow shook her head.

“Buffy, if we do this right, we can do something truly meaningful for the world.” Cordelia’s eyes sparkled with revolutionary zeal. “We’ll catch the Ls in the rainbow pride parade up with all those stylish Gs, setting a fashionable example for everyone. We’ll have Harmony desperately trying to get a girlfriend of her own, just to look as good as us.”

“Huh?” Buffy blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking matching outfits from Milan. With Gucci purses.” Cordelia straightened up, new purpose in her eyes. “We’re going to be the hottest female couple Sunnydale High, no, California has ever seen.”

“Huh? Do you actually think that will…really?” An identical spark flickered in Buffy’s eye. She might have doubts, but she wasn’t immune to the siren call of Gucci. 

Willow rolled her eyes and wished for the heavens to give her strength. 

“If this plan to save our reputations involves Gucci, do I get to keep whatever we’ll be using?” The blonde Slayer turned wide blue eyes upon her new savior, visions of a new wardrobe, courtesy of Cordelia’s wallet, dancing in her head. 

Cordelia turned a steely gaze upon her new partner in fashion. “Don’t push it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sad fact about Marie Antoinette...she was a victim of the rumor mill. Much of what has been presumed about her for years had no proof to back it up. People still assumed the rumors were true and hated her for them. It's truly scary.


End file.
